Pumpkin Seeds In Our Healthy Diet

This year we decided to change some celebrated traditions in menu on Thanksgiving Day, which  usually consists of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffings, pumpkin pie, and other ‘heavyweight’ traditional holiday meals. Do you know that just one traditional Thanksgiving dinner can expand your waist significantly, if you permit yourself to indulge in all these  foods at once?

We came up with our green, healthy and delicious recipes that provided joy to our family and guests. Well, it was really something different, but a pumpkin was  a centerpiece of our dinner table.

In the fall Mother Nature brings to us a rich variety of pumpkins, 27 species, native to tropical and subtropical America. The most popular and well  known is pumpkin, winter squash (Cucurbita maxima), a fleshy fruit that may be green, yellow, orange, or red when ripe, and filled with white seeds. It was first grown in Peru and reached Europe in 1532 after the Spanish conquest.

There is another pumpkin or squash, known as Cucurbita moschata. It was known in South and North America for 5,000 years, and may have originated in Mexico. However, the oldest is definitely Mexican by origin, and has been grown by farmers in southern North America for over 8,000 years. Pumpkins and their cousins, marrows, winter and summer squashes have the same nutritious and medicinal properties even with their interchangeable common names.    

Let’s start with pumpkin seeds. I love them from my childhood. Rich in oil, vitamins, and minerals, especially zinc, they make  a great snack. These seeds are especially useful for men in treating enlarged prostate. Chinese medicine adapted use of pumpkin seeds long ago, in the 17th century.  They were used by the European doctors for centuries, too.

These nutritional seeds have a sweet, warming, nutty-flavored taste, and act as a diuretic, soothe irritated issues, help to expel intestinal parasites, and treat nausea and travel sickness.

You can always buy these seeds in Whole Foods or other health food stores. Keep these natural treats in a glass jar with the lid in your pantry, and eat a bunch every day or two-three times per week. If you travel, pack them in a glass container (avoid plastic) and take it with you.

Read our next post about how to make new, delicious foods with pumpkins or other squashes.

Read our next post, Pumpkin, the Vegetable of a Day, Part 2.

References: Deni Brown, Encyclopedia of Herbs, Dorling Kinderesley, 1995, p.269

Photos of pumpkin and pumpkin seedes by Petr Kratovchil